Tuesday, June 5, 2012

I am a lifelong Democrat--perhaps even a
borderline Socialist, though I am more comfortable with the term Social
Democrat. One of my earliest memories of this leaning came when, outraged at
the expense of color televisions and disappointed that we couldn't afford one, I
vowed solemnly to my family that when I grew up, I was going to open a store
and sell TVs for $50, so that everyone could afford one.My family guffawed at me; It doesn't work that way, they insisted.
Their resistance to my scheme only made
me dig in my heels.

Of course, in a way they were right; capitalism sets
wide profit margins that forces merchants to collude. I understand now how it works; but I still
don't like it.Just last night, watching
TV with my husband, we caught a commercial for a local men's clothing store running
a sale; all blazers and sport coats are half price. In addition, if a customer
buys one, another one comes free for the asking: two jackets for the cost of
half a regular-priced one.I turned,
indignant, to my husband and snorted, "The only reason they can manage a
sale like this is that their prices are so inflated to begin with."

My lens on the world, then, hasn't changed much
since I was a kid.I am aware, though,
of one inconsistency in my worldview.Happy to extend my sympathy to consumers, the unemployed, the poor, the
working poor, single parents, pro-choice proponents, juvenile delinquents,
addicts--all the usual suspects in Democratic purview--I struggle to find
sympathy for illness.My dedicated
convictions have not been able to penetrate the subtle undercurrent of family
history.

It took a long time for my younger sister to finally
get a diagnosis for the first of her two serious illnesses, diabetes insipidus.
She had developed a ravenous,
round-the-clock thirst, had to run to the bathroom all the time. When water was
refused, she seemed to shrink and dry up.She literally couldn't wait for a drink or a bathroom break.The symptoms seemed real, yet doctors were running
out of ideas.They couldn't find
anything wrong with her. When they hit upon the possible condition to explain
her symptoms, the test to confirm the diagnosis required my sister go without water overnight.By the time the test was performed the next
morning, her lips were dry and literally cracked.

It is a serious thing to suspect someone is faking
an illness for attention.Worse, to
blame that person, to say it out loud.Such
an accusation could have lifelong reverberations.

My sister told me, when we were both adults, that while
visiting my grandmother as a child, a summer routine we all practiced, my
grandmother would put her medication on top of the refrigerator, out of reach.
She would tell my sister she didn't need it; she should stop pretending to be
sick.She would try to withhold water
from my sister. My cousin Kim, who often stayed there at the same time, would
get up at night with my sister, sneak past my uncle Maurice in his drunken
slumber in a bed near the head of the stairs, quietly move a chair over to the
fridge, and help her get her medication.

Doubt begins as a niggling impulse.Who could doubt that my sister was really
ill?And yet, it had taken so long to
figure out what was wrong with her. And yet, she began to require other
medications that transformed her into someone always in need of attention:
prednisone made her balloon in front of our eyes. And yet, she has remained ill
all her life, acquiring several other conditions, a domino chain of breakdown:histiocytosis, rheumatoid arthritis,
migraines.

And yet, the summer before my sister became ill,
my brother died. He was three. The two of them had shared a room, two twin beds,
two sides of one coin, the younger two of four children, half a family now suddenly less than half.One bed emptied suddenly.One companion gone. How long did it remain in
that room, a siren wail, a visible reminder that she was now singled out,
alone?

When I was only thirty-eight, I was diagnosed with
a herniated disc in my neck.For six
months, I walked around stiff as a dry sponge, unable to turn my head from side
to side.Among the most frustrating
aspects of this condition was the fact that doctors were unable to tell me what
had caused it.I was a runner, a
volleyball player, a softball player. I gardened, I landscaped, I hiked. I hadn't injured myself. There wasn't supposed to be any opening in my
life for an injury like this.

Once, venting about the unexplained onset to a
friend, I recoiled in recognition when she said, "Think about what is causing you a pain in the neck in
your life."

Ten years later, I am symptom-free, a bona fide
miracle.I don't even have the residual
pain under my left shoulder blade that dogged me after the majority of the neck
pain subsided.I am also blessedly free
of the man I was with then, whose neuroses and passive-aggressive tendencies nearly
broke me.He was paranoid, depressed,
unhealthy in a legion of ways; prime among them was his refusal to get
consistent treatment.He hated dogs and
I think my children and I think, eventually, me. My life with him was a
constant struggle I eventually shrugged out from under.

My relationship with him is the one thing for
which I harbor guilt.It unfurls endlessly,
fabric off a bolt, whenever I think of him.If only I would have avoided it, I think, and then I chastise myself for
not avoiding it.There is nothing
positive--not a thing--I took from our 6 years together. Nothing I am grateful
for or miss.In addition, I believe I
brought on the irritation in my neck from the stress I invited into my life
through him.It is my fault; in a way, I
made myself sick.

There. I said it.I do believe that there is a mind/body connection, perhaps psychosomatic.Sometimes, people's illnesses do reflect in a
metaphorical way their condition in life, their needs or neuroses or quirks or unacknowledged
fears.

But I do not believe my sister made herself
ill.But I do believe my brother's death
shook her to the core, more than I can ever know.But I do wonder:does illness shape lives or do lives shape
illnesses?But I do know:we can become, literally, our worst fears.

I was terrified of my herniated disc, of
redefining myself as an inactive person, a person whose condition forced
changes:I couldn't carry the laundry
basket up the stairs, I had to take muscle relaxants to sleep, I had to have a special neck roll for my
pillow, I had to work out with a neck weight each day, I had to stretch my neck
3 times a day, I couldn't run or bike or play volleyball.My life was not my own during that six
months; I wriggled under the discomfort a shifting identity brought me. I
wanted control back; I wanted to preserve my well-developed sense of agency and
control.

If that makes me neurotic, I will have to live
with it.

The other thing for which I harbor guilt is a
subtle, gut reaction of skepticism whenever I hear about an illness, especially
a prolonged or chronic one.I despise
the part of me that despises weakness and analyzes other people's lives,
looking for clues to their vulnerabilities.A person who looks at others that way, it seems, must feel superior,
above the pale.I don't want to be that
person, riding on a wave of arrogance that is bound to crash into sand pounded
hard by its own settling.

About Me

I'm a Midwestern girl with energy, some great men in my life (husband and 3 sons), a handful of essential values, as much edge as I can muster, and a love of God's country, by which I mean anything outside. I try to make work fun, and I try not to take myself too seriously. Really, I do.